


In the Shadows

by Evandar



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Vampire, Dumbledore's Army, First Kiss, Gen, Secret Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-22
Updated: 2016-02-22
Packaged: 2018-05-22 16:37:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6086932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evandar/pseuds/Evandar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joining the DA goes against his every desire to remain unnoticed, but he <i>did</i> always find Potter hard to resist.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Shadows

He braces himself before entering the pub. He can’t quite shake the feeling that this is all going to go horribly wrong. Boot may have invited him along, and he may have even meant it at the time, but Boot’s not the one in charge of this little get-together. Granger is. Potter is. Weasley…he’s not so sure about. Needless to say, there’s likely not going to be a place for a Slytherin in anything that the saintly Golden Trio has arranged.

Still, he musters what bravery he has and pushes open the door. He feels like he has to at least try.

There’s more people gathered in the Hog’s Head than there’s likely ever been. A crowd of students, all with their backs to the door. He spots scarves in red and yellow and blue, but no green. Not a single other Slytherin. As always, the mudbloods and the non-humans of the serpent House have gone forgotten by the rest of the school, and his impulsive decision to swap his school scarf for a more nondescript black one on his way to the village suddenly doesn’t seem like such a bad idea.

He lurks in the back, listening as Potter snaps and snarls about how he’s “not good at any of this stuff” and “just lucky”, and revises his earlier assessment. This group is all Granger. _Wonderful._

The temptation to slip away is still there. It’s growing, actually. His grades are excellent and he’s more than capable of studying on his own. He usually does anyway. But still. He’s managed to keep his head down and his, ah, _affliction_ unnoticed for the last five years, but that doesn’t mean he’s in the slightest bit comfortable with the kind of things that Umbridge spouts. And it would be nice to have someone to practise spells with. And…

And it would be nice to know why Boot invited him to this in the first place. 

He watches and listens as the crowd’s interest and Granger’s wheedling somehow convince Potter that it’s all in a good cause. The Hufflepuff in front of him shifts, and Blaise catches a glimpse of Potter’s face as he resigns himself to teaching – he’s pale, with spots of colour high on his cheeks, and his green eyes are blazing behind his glasses. He’s stunning. As always.

He joins the queue to sign Granger’s little parchment. He can feel the magic on the parchment surging up to meet his own as he leans over it with a quill, and he can feel it back off again. It’s a complex bit of magic, and he’s man enough to admit to himself that he’s impressed, but what Granger _doesn’t_ know is that no amount of fealty or secrecy spells will ever effect a vampire.

He signs with a flourish.

…

He ends up going to the first meeting with Boot. It’s easy enough to slip off with him – most of Slytherin are of the opinion that Blaise should have been a Ravenclaw anyway, and they _have_ been steady Runes partners for the last two years. 

It’s harder, now that he’s in his uniform, to ignore the fact that he’s the only person from his House here. It’s certainly harder for the rest of the group to ignore. They spot him, this time, and he receives several filthy looks aimed at his tie and the badge on his robes. Weasley seems particularly offended when he spots him: he turns purple and rounds on Granger, gesticulating angrily in Blaise’s direction. 

He doesn’t need his inhumanly sharp hearing to listen to every word; Weasley is almost loud enough for the entire castle to hear. “What’s a bloody _Slytherin_ doing here?” he demands, as if Blaise is the epitome of evil.

“He was at the meeting in the pub, Ron! He’s signed the parchment!”

Potter, out of all of them, is the only one that doesn’t question his presence. He shoots Blaise a curious look, but there’s a surprising lack of suspicion in it. It occurs to Blaise then that – having shared classes with him for the last five years – Potter probably has no idea what his name is. They’ve never spoken. Never interacted in any way until now.

His lips twitch. Potter is actually giving him a _chance_. Hell, he’s even smiling _back_. It’s so completely unexpected that Blaise half wants to dissect him to find out why.

He doesn’t get a chance. 

Not that he was _actually_ going to dissect Potter in front of a crowd, but he doesn’t even get the chance to talk to him. Blaise is, after all, somewhat more competent than some of the others in the room. Dumbledore’s Army – what a _name_ \- is a ragtag group, with members ranging from first through to seventh year. And even though they’re only doing the disarming spell, there’s a shocking number of people who can either not perform it, or who seem completely incapable of aiming their wands at a target.

Blaise, able on both counts, practises a couple of times before settling himself in a corner to watch. Potter moves amongst the crowd. He corrects aim and offers hints, and not once does he lose his temper. It’s oddly inspirational. 

He’s interrupted, of course, by Boot, who slides down the wall to sit next to him. “Glad you came along?” he asks, and the faux-innocence of his tone sets Blaise’s teeth on edge.

“It’s nothing I don’t know already,” he replies. 

Boot smiles. His eyes bloody _twinkle_. “Yeah, but you get to do your covert, creepy staring at Potter in a different setting.”

Blaise is a Slytherin. His first instinct is always to lie and lie convincingly. But this time he can’t – he’s been caught red-handed, after all. Boot looks so unbearably smug, and looks even more so after Blaise’s lame, muttered retort of “he intrigues me”.

Intrigues. _Intrigues_. Potter’s a bloody _menace_ , but at least the mystery of why Boot wanted him to come along to this has been solved. 

The temptation to hex him is too hard to resist. Boot laughs even as he breaks out in boils.

…

Keeping his head down and staying out of the way is second nature to Blaise. Wizards rule in the magical world, and in Slytherin House especially. And for all that Blaise is magical, his thirst for blood is all that will matter should anyone ever hear about it. The hideous frog-bitch who calls herself the High Inquisitor is only a symptom of a disease. The same disease that created the Dark Lord and Draco Malfoy.

Blaise keeps himself so secret that the thought of anyone knowing anything about him makes his skin crawl – even someone as relatively harmless as Boot knowing about his embarrassing, never-should-be-spoken-of, crush on Potter. It makes him want to hide himself away, turn his back on the DA and never return. 

He doesn’t. He still turns up the following week, and half-listens to Potter’s instructions as he outlines the intricacies of the impediment jinx. Potter’s a good teacher, certainly better than Umbridge – and more open-minded.

He’d known about Lupin. He was friends with Hagrid. Treacherous hope is beginning to tug at Blaise’s cold, dead heart, and he can’t stop himself from wondering if Potter would maybe accept him too. 

Ridiculous, of course. Vampires are monsters all of the time. 

He manages, somehow, to keep attending the DA without completely losing his sense of self-preservation. He’s fortunate that Malfoy is so used to his disappearances and secrecy that he thinks nothing of it this year, and he manages to evade the widening net of Umbridge’s influence. He plays the good pureblood. He doesn’t get caught. He slips so thoroughly under the radar that by the last session of the DA before the winter holidays, there are still only about three people in the room who know his name.

Potter is one of them. And Potter, at the end, calls him back.

“You, er, looked like you were having some trouble there,” he says.

Blaise shrugs. It’s no surprise to _him_ that he can’t produce a Patronus. His personal life notwithstanding, there’s some debate over whether vampires can actually perform the spell at all – certainly Blaise has never heard of one who can. “Can’t master everything,” he says.

Potter smiles. It’s a pretty smile – kind and slightly crooked – and Blaise wants to kiss it off him. “That’s true, I guess,” he says. “It just surprised me. You’ve not had a problem with any of the spells before.”

It’s news to Blaise that Potter’s been watching him back. He tells himself not to be flattered. Potter _is_ a good teacher and keeping an eye on everyone _is_ what good teachers are supposed to do. “It’s good revision,” he mumbles, looking away. “And the company’s better.”

He hadn’t meant to say that out loud, but judging by his snort of laughter, Potter approves. Blaise allows himself a slight smile. It’s true, after all. He might objectively have more in common with Malfoy, but that doesn’t mean he has to like him. Only that he has to live with him.

Silence falls between them. It stretches on, awkward. He can hear Potter breathing. He can hear the steady beating of his heart and the rasp of his tongue over skin as he licks his chapped lips. Blaise closes his eyes. Potter is _maddening_. 

“I should probably go,” he says. “Your friends are waiting for you.”

Potter gives him an odd look. “I told them to go on without me,” he says.

They haven’t. Blaise can hear them – Weasley’s sullen drone mixed with the shrill chatter of she-Weasley and Granger. They’ve stopped about a corridor away, and they _are_ waiting: they’re too suspicious of whatever Blaise might get it into his head to do to abandon Potter to his whims.

Blaise suddenly feels very tired.

“I, er, just wanted to talk to you, really,” Potter says. He looks away, and Blaise can’t stop himself from admiring the long, pale line of Potter’s neck. He’s sees as well as hears Potter’s pulse quicken, and his fangs lengthen on instinct.

He swallows. He forces himself to calm down. He is _not_ going to snack on the Boy Wonder of Gryffindor.

If he wants to remain in tenuous control, he’s going to _have_ to go, but the Room chooses that moment to sprout mistletoe over his head. It ignores Blaise’s silent pleas for it to catch fire or die horribly, and spreads downwards until the tips of its leaves are just brushing the top of his head. It tickles. It’s taking everything he has to not run for the door, but Potter is smiling at him – that sweet little crooked smile and –

Blaise thinks that, if it hadn’t been still already, his heart would have stopped.

Potter is kissing him. He’s right up in Blaise’s space, surrounding him with his scent, balanced on his tip-toes to try and reach. Whatever control Blaise might have had over himself evaporates in an instant, and he grasps Potter’s hips with both hands, pulling him close as he opens his mouth and their tongues touch for the first time.

It’s strangely intimate. The act of tasting another person without drinking from them is so alien to him that it makes his skin prickle and his fangs descend once more. Potter cuts himself seconds later, running his tongue along Blaise’s teeth, and he jerks back. 

Blaise has to force himself to let go. Potter’s blood is as sensational as the rest of him. Rich and potent and savoury and unpolluted by the Muggle strain from his mother’s side. He’s an explosion of flavour on Blaise’s tongue, and –

And he’s staring at Blaise as if the world has suddenly decided to make sense.

“I did wonder, you know,” he says. “Why you decided to join up. I thought – God, this is going to sound awful – I thought it might have been because of me. What with the way you’ve been looking at me.”

Blaise’s first thought is one of incredulity. _Does everybody know?!_ But it’s ridiculous. If they did, Malfoy would have made sure that Blaise could never return to their dorm unmolested and un-ridiculed. But that sense of the world having tilted only strengthens when he realises that Potter is smiling at him; is approaching him again even as he licks his own blood off his lower lip. He’s not afraid.

Blaise is nowhere near arrogant enough to believe that he’s more frightening than the Dark Lord. But _still_.

“I’m glad,” Potter says as he winds his arms around Blaise’s waist. “That it wasn’t just for me.”

And that makes no sense at all – much like Potter himself, Blaise has come to realise. He snorts with laughter and leans his head down to bury his nose in soft, wild hair.

“Whatever, Potter,” he mutters.


End file.
